Comment by legulere
20 hours ago
> The reliability of french electricity
Except for the winter of 2022 when more than half of French reactors were not running, which was especially critical because of the Russian War against the Ukraine. Coal reactors had to be reactivated in Germany so lights didn't turn off in France.
Or summer when reactors have to be shut down because the rivers are too hot or running low.
> Or summer when reactors have to be shut down because the rivers are too hot or running low.
Palo Verde is right next to the Sonoran Desert and has been running for forty years in Arizona heat:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...
There's no technical reason why nuclear plants can't run in low/hot water situations.
France net exported power this summer every single day and hour.
France net imported in 2022 less vs Germany net imported in 2024 in business as usual situation
Edf also announced yo add cooling towers to bypass old environmental laws, especially for Golfech
So many reactors off was a special event of delayed maintenance, things are done so that does not usually happens. And it's not true to say that Germany reactivated coal reactors for French lights.
Germany activated coal to reduce dependance on gas, and Germany exported energy to France because of the maintainances ; you know, the old correlation =/= causation.
That one occurence over 4 decades, I would say we can dare to call it pretty reliable
There were also issues recently where low river water levels forced reactors to reduce output and even shut down.
This has been happening for decades. It's pretty common in summer, which used not to be an issue since peak use is during winter.
This may come as an issue if air con develops fast, though.
Check out data this summer and tell me how many hours or minuts did France NET import power in all 3 months?